Posts Tagged ‘music’

I woke up with this title in my head. I don’t think I’ve ever named a dream while still asleep.

A shabbily dressed homeless man stood in the middle of the street, autumn leaves blowing past him in the light breeze. I stood transfixed on the sidewalk. He was plucking an acoustic guitar, singing The Weight with his scratchy voice.

His voice wasn’t what captivated me, it was the fact that he had no hands. His arms ended in stumps, yet he was still able to play quite well. A class of schoolchildren on a field trip approached him in a line, their teacher at the head. Each child held a bowl of applesauce and a spoon. The teacher approached the man and scooped out a spoon of applesauce, holding it up to him. He happily ate it and kept on playing.

One by one, still in their line behind the street musician, the children turned and fed the child behind them a single scoop of applesauce. A woman came jogging by on the sidewalk dressed head to toe in sweats, but still style-conscious enough to be attired with many fine earrings, necklaces and rings.

“What a noble thing you kids are doing, “she said as she came to a stop. “I can help out too.”

She plucked a ring from her finger, a flat golden heart-shaped band, and tossed it to the school kids. It was a poor throw, and the ring bounced in the middle of the street and rolled under a nearby parked car. My sister, who had apparently been standing beside me this whole time, ran over and stooped under the car to retrieve the ring. She returned and gave it to me.

“Is it gold?” she asked. “You’ll know if it’s gold if it’s still warm.” I put the ring to my cheek to test.

As a grizzled veteran soldier of the BLU team, I knew the coming fight would be gritty and intense. My rocket launcher pressed down heavily upon my shoulder. I felt behind my back for my Buff Banner and deployed it to flap in the breeze. The sound of my battle horn echoed off the concrete walls of the RED team’s base and the steel mesh gates before me opened.

I made my way through the narrow corridors, keeping a watchful eye for signs of any RED contact. The hall widened out into a courtyard bordered on one side by a raised concrete platform glowing RED. Lining the walls above the platform were several levels of metal catwalks, each packed with various types of equipment. I spotted two automated sentry guns assembling themselves and counted myself lucky they weren’t ready to fire yet.

Most of the rest of the equipment on the catwalks were amps, speakers, and other audio devices. Aerosmith assaulted my ears from the amps. I grimaced. Mr. Palamino, my high school councilor stood behind me.

“You’ve got to shoot those amps!” he yelled.

I raised my rocket launcher and took aim. With a squeeze of the trigger a large yellow plastic rocket shot forth on compressed air, slamming into the amp and nearly sending it toppling off the catwalk. Upon impact the music changed.

“Yeah!” Palamino exclaimed. “Do it again!”

I fired again, but this time the rocket sailed low, bouncing back off the bottom of the catwalk and sailing back down towards us. Mr. Palamino tried to avoid it but the rocket struck him hard in the chest, sending him reeling backwards to strike his back into a low concrete wall.